Blast mitigating panels for cargo containers have a tendency to `bow` outwards when an explosive charge is detonated inside the container. The panels often fail at their edges and corners where they are attached to each other or to a frame, before the material of the panel fails.
The longer a blast can be contained, and the more expandable the container, the greater the energy the blast wave has to expend in disrupting the cargo container. The consequence of a longer containment time is expected to be a reduction in impulse loading and any emerging wave is less energetic when it interacts with the structure of the aircraft.
There therefore exists a requirement for a cargo container capable of absorbing a significant proportion of the explosive blast energy from an explosion thereby to reduce impulse loading on an aircraft structure.
Techniques investigated by British Aerospace Plc's Sowerby Research Centre have illustrated that the following apparatus could provide a cargo container which reduces and possibly eliminates the above mentioned problems.